Fashion Blogging?

Today I visited teenvogue.com because even though I'm a grown up now, I still appreciate its fun fashion sense. In the Girl of the Week section, I discovered almost every girl chosen has just started her own fashion blog. I checked out one of them. Each post consisted either of of-the-moment fashion preferences or the girl herself modeling in rather expensive new clothing. For some posts, she had even employed a friend to take model shots of her.

I reacted in two ways to the blog. My first thought was of mild disgust at the narcissism of it all. Sure, the girl has a gift for styling outfits. But the amount of time consumed with perfecting her image, buying clothing, and taking pictures of herself seems excessive.

On the other hand, the idea of starting a fashion blog appeals to my own interest in fashion and modeling. I wondered if I should utilize its concepts to some degree. For instance, my friends and I could continue our fashion shoots and I could post them on a blog! Or I could bring pieces I like together, although doing publicly what I've been doing on powerpoints for years seems scary because I don't want to be perceived as superficial.

And now I delve into our need to create an image for ourselves. For fashion bloggers, it's style. And although I'm interested in fashion, I've tried to create an image of verbal creativity and insight or of my intelligence or nonconformity.

None of it really matters in the end. I was talking to Daniel and Mary about this yesterday. By defining ourselves by a "thing," something by which we attain relevance to ourselves or others, we set ourselves up for failure and inadequacy. Because when we inevitably fail, we lose our identity. But it's just a created identity, it isn't who we are. People are people, defined by too many things to count. If we could appreciate that, maybe our image would improve without our own exhaustive, superficial aid. Its easier said than done.

I'm still considering starting a fashion blog.